Warning: SPOILERS for the Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3’s opening four episodes are ahead!
From the moment we met her in Star Wars: The Bad Batch’s first episode, it’s been made abundantly clear that Michelle Ang’s Omega is special. Initially that was because, like Boba Fett, she’s a Jango Fett clone who ages normally rather than at an accelerated rate like the other female clone, scientist Emerie Karr. However, it’s become apparent in more recent episodes that there’s more to it than just that. As it turns out, Omega’s DNA holds the key to something Dr. Royce Hemlock is working on called Project Necromancer.
That name should sound familiar to those of you who watch The Mandalorian, which, like The Bad Batch, streams exclusively with a Disney+ subscription. But there’s more to it than that, as these experiments also tie Omega even closer to Emperor Palpatine, specifically what we learned about him in The Rise of Skywalker, chronologically the last of the Star Wars movies in order (until that Rey movie comes along). So let’s go over the latest information regarding Omega’s importance, and what I think it means for the larger franchise.
Omega Is Key To Project Necromancer
Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3’s third episode, titled “Shadows of Tantiss” saw Emperor Palpatine visiting the Tantiss facility on Weyland to check on Hemlock’s Project Necromancer progress. Hemlock informed Palpatine that with more time and additional resources, he’d be able produce a “successful M-count replication. Palpatine told him that there was nothing of more importance to secure the future of the Empire, so he’d receive anything he needed to accomplish this goal. The problem, however, is that as seen in The Bad Batch Season 3’s first three episodes, all of the clone blood samples tested for the project proved to be useless.
But as this was going on, a sample of Omega’s blood was finally on its way to being successfully tested, something that Nala Se had previously been able to prevent from happening. The good news is that Omega and Crosshair were finally able to escape Tantiss during this time. The bad news is it’s only because Hemlock allowed them to. As they were fleeing the planet, Omega’s blood went through the testing machine, and as Emerie Karr told Hemlock, the sample “supported a positive M-count transfer with no degradation from the specimen.” In other words, Hemlock needs Omega alive in order to continue his experiments, so he was forced to let her and Crosshair go.
As of this week’s episode, “A Different Approach,” Omega and Crosshair were able to elude the Imperial forces that were directly following them and rendezvous with Hunter and Wrecker. So for now, they’re safe, although in Crosshair’s case, he’s now in the awkward position of having to hang out with his former Clone Force 99 comrades. Still, Omega’s far from being out of danger, as Hemlock won’t stop until he can capture her again and use her to successfully complete Project Necromancer.
Why This Has Major Implications For The Larger Star Wars Franchise
Somehow, Palpatine returned in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Ok, joke aside, we learned in the 2019 movie that Palpatine had transferred his consciousness into a clone body after being tossed down that shaft in the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi. However, Palpatine couldn’t just insert his consciousness into any clone body; it had to be one with a high M-count, i.e. one brimming with Midi-chlorians, the microscopic life forms within all living beings, and allow some of these being to use the Force.
We also learned in The Rise of Skywalker that Rey was Palpatine’s granddaughter, with the Emperor having had a son who turned his back on his evil father and went on the run with his wife, with the two of them ultimately dropping Rey off on Jakku and leaving her behind to keep her safe. It was later clarified in the novel Shadow of the Sith that Rey’s father, named Dathan, was a failed clone of Palpatine’s, in that while his body looked normal, he didn’t have a strong connection to the Force, and Palatine deemed him a failure. By the time of The Rise of Skywalker, Palpatine, stuck in a physically impaired body, had hoped to transfer his consciousness into Rey’s body, but he was unsuccessful in accomplishing this and hopefully is now permanently dead.
Then along came The Mandalorian, which established its own ties to Palpatine’s clones through Grogu. While it’s been known since that Star Wars show launched that the Empire wanted the adorable member of Yoda’s species, it was in Season 2 that clones started to be teased. We heard a hologram of scientist Penn Pershing talking about subjects with M-counts. Now granted, in The Mandalorian Season 3, it was revealed that Moff Gideon had commissioned the creation of his own Force-sensitive clones, but even though he’s now seemingly dead, the Empire isn’t going to stop hunting down Grogu. After all, Captain Gilad Pellaeon mentioned in a meeting with fellow Imperial bigwigs prior to Gideon’s demise that Brendol Hux was working on Project Necromancer, which was our first time hearing of its existence.
So what does all this mean for Omega? Well, now we know that the young clone factored into the experiments on Palpatine’s clones back to their earliest days. In fact, she seems to mark Project Necromancer’s first positive step forward. As mentioned earlier, her blood proves she can handle Midi-chlorians being transferred into her without dying. Omega herself hasn’t demonstrated any Force abilities on Star Wars: The Bad Batch, but evidently that can change if the Midi-chlorian transfer takes place. Unfortunately, that in turn means that she could hypothetically be used as an involuntary vessel for Palpatine’s consciousness.
Ultimately though, we know Omega won’t fulfill Project Necromancer’s endgame. Yes, her fate by the end of Star Wars: The Bad Batch remains shrouded in secrecy, but since Palpatine was stuck in the same body for the entirety of the Empire’s rule over the galaxy, it’s logical to deduce that the either the M-count transfer won’t take place or she’ll be able to escape afterwards if it does take place. I’m hoping it’s the latter, because the prospect of seeing an adult Omega use the Force, whether it’s in animated or live-action project, sounds cool!
However, even if it’s the former option, and we fast-forward to the post-Return of the Jedi time period and assume that Omega is still alive, wouldn’t the Empire still want to hunt her down? After all, by this point they’ve been drawing Grogu’s M-count-packed blood, so Omega would still be a viable candidate for accepting that M-count transfer. Do the Imperials eventually reach a point where they decide she’s not worth the bother of apprehending anymore and try to find a replacement candidate. That’s hard to say, but again, given where we find Palpatine in The Rise of Skywalker, Project Necromancer clearly doesn’t make the strides the Sith Lord hoped for.
We’re now just under one-fourth of the way into Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3’s run, so hopefully before the season’s done, we’ll get resolution one way or another on what Project Necromancer has in store for Omega. New episodes premiere on Wednesdays, and be sure to look through the upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows on the docket.
